Wednesday, January 23, 2013

2013 Fire and Ice

This past weekend we headed to Cave Lake for the annual Fire and Ice Festival. Down in the valleys it was frigid, but up in the pinyon/juniper zone, the temperatures were in the 30s and very pleasant.

The last two years I've entered the snow/ice sculpting contest, but the last two years it's been cancelled due to warm weather! (See what we did here and here.) Fortunately this year it was cold enough to have the competition. But alas, I did not enter. That was okay. It was great fun to go look at the sculptures and do some of the other activities.

One of those activities was sledding. Desert Girl was ready!

I went down with her multiple times, and each time at the bottom, she said, "Let's do it again!" I have never seen her so enthusiastic about sledding!

She's quite relaxed, as you can see!

Desert Boy did some sledding too, and even managed to find a little jump. But he had much bigger plans than just sledding. He also wanted to do the snow bowling.

It was fun, but it sure made you appreciate the automatic pin setters in the bowling alleys!

We enjoyed some time with friends at the lake. Here's Sam on his way to what looks like a strike.

Of course we had to do a couple tours of the lake to see the ice sculptures.

A lake monster

Race car

Ore cars

King Kong

And my favorite, an Icthyosaur (Nevada's state fossil)

Well, seeing all the snow sculptures made Desert Boy really want to do one. So he did.

Gathering snow.

More snow

The great and fantastic snow volcano!

Maybe next year we'll enter again. This year's weather was super, and it was really fun to be out there.
To hear the music (and see the dancing and snow sculpture in action), check out this short video:

1 comment:

About Me

Hi! I'm Gretchen, an ecologist, rancher's wife, mother, writer, and dreamer. I've lived and worked in three of the four North American deserts and visited the fourth. This blog is about what it's like to live in the rural high desert on a ranch, spending lots of time outdoors with kids, and our journey to live more sustainably. To learn more about the area, click here. If you'd like to contact me, leave a comment (I love comments!) or email me at desertsurvivor @ live.com.